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WIP: Project Outworld

The Lands of the Human is my first official map in progress for a Burning Wheel RPG Campaign Setting that I am working on. I am just getting settled in behind the wheel of my GIMP. I am starting to get a good grasp on what I can do with it after playing with some of the different tutorials here and elsewhere on mapping techniques and other things.

The original land form contours are based on a scanned drawing of the basic world. Some things to consider on this map are that the world is artifial in nature. The background story is that a Dyson's Sphere type world has was comissioned to be built by an ancient alien race. The world is a giant space station that envelopes a neutron star. the inside surface facing the star has split up into thousands of different "world" sections. Each built to house an alien race or a combination of different alien races that are considered to be compatible with one another.

I have not yet decided on a style for the land or the border areas, the green and orange areas respectively. This is where I hope to get some advice. I plan to do multiple versions of each map area, one atlas style and on hand drawn style. The hand drawn styles are created by the peoples of that inhabit the land, the atlas style is what could be found in the alien databases in the stations computers.

I am looking for advice on how to show elevation in an old or antique style that compliments the ocean style as it is in the image. The border areas are actually just very tall rocky cliff faces that are very difficult to successfully climb. They are separate the worlds from each other in most cases. They can also separate experimental areas within a map. Within the rock of these areas are mechanisms, cavities and pumps that allow operators of the station to alter the mass of the world within.

I wish I could give you some advice on what you're looking for, but I'm still pretty new at this too. I did want to let you know, however, that I like how your land masses are placed. It makes me feel like I'm looking at a map of Earth with one of the poles in the center.